


Taking Flight

by yarroway



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Accidents, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 13:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1551359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yarroway/pseuds/yarroway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the sick!Wilson_fest fic challenge.  For the prompt, 'House and Wilson are both in an accident and are confined to the same hospital room while they recover.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking Flight

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: House, M.D. belongs to Heel & Toe Films, ShoreZ Productions, Bad Hat Harry Productions, and Universal Media Studios. I'm not making any money from this.
> 
> Thanks: my thanks to Srsly_yes for all her hard beta work. All errors remain my own.
> 
> Note: This fic is really a very friendship-oriented fic. I wasn't sure whether to class it as gen or m/m. I hope I got it right.

  
**Taking Flight**

Wilson gave the sled a push to start it on its way. Then he straightened, rubbing at his back. All this bending in the cold was making it ache.

"Isn’t this fun?" Cuddy called as she and a gleefully shrieking Rachel slid slowly down the gentle slope.

"Tons!" House called back, smiling broadly. When she'd passed, House folded up the smile and put it away. "I haven't been this bored since the annual Grass Growing Tournament in East Buttfuck."

"Really? I have it on good authority that at the last Paint Drying competition in Podunk, no fewer than seventeen teenage girls fainted from the excitement alone."

"Let's go," House answered, moving restlessly in the cold. "Fainting teenage girls are fun, and there would be chairs."

The sled glided slowly to a stop on the flat bottom, and Wilson jogged down to once again collect it and tow them all back up the hill. This time when he got back to the top, House waved Cuddy off.

"Nuh-uh. It's time for the boys to have a turn."

Cuddy took Rachel in her arms and got off the sled. She eyed the shallow slope doubtfully. House turned the empty sled around to face the opposite side of the hill. He climbed on and scooted back. "Get on."

Wilson joined him. This slope was much steeper, a little reminiscent of the hill he'd used to sled on in his boyhood except for a rocky section over to the left, where it looked like a mudslide had left boulders strewn in its wake.

Wilson arranged himself, sitting back against House carefully to avoid hurting his leg.

"Ready?"

This was going to be fun. "Yeah."

 

***************

 

Beep…beep…beep…

What was that annoying sound? Wilson couldn't sleep like this. Why wasn't it stopping?

He closed his eyes again and tried to get back to sleep.

Beep…beep…beep…

Something was pushing on his chest. Wilson moved, and pain scored his side. He gasped, then panicked when he couldn't take a full breath.

He lifted his head to see what was wrong, and winced as pain flared in his neck. He lay back with a groan. Then he remembered flying down the snowy hill with House, crashing into the boulder, and lying on the ground unable to move. Where was he now? Where was House?

Wilson tried turning his head slowly. That didn't hurt as much. He was in a hospital room. The beeping was his heart monitor, and House was in the next bed over.

House was unconscious or asleep, but he was alive. Wilson was glad. House wasn't allowed to die of his injuries. Wilson was going to kill him with his bare hands for what he'd done.

 

**********

 

The next time Wilson woke, he did a quick inventory of his injuries based on bandages and pain:  
Broken ribs, check.  
Shallow breaths due to compression wraps around the broken ribs, an annoyed check.  
Muscle aches and soreness everywhere, especially his neck, check.  
Lacerations on his arm and side, check.  
Abdominal pain. Abdominal pain?

Wilson struggled to sit up and examine himself. He ran his fingers over the painful area, and felt a bandage over his spleen. Moving slowly to avoid aggravating his neck, Wilson craned his head down to see. The bandage was stained with dried blood. Judging by its placement someone had removed his spleen, which meant that it had ruptured on impact. That made sense. Given what had happened, Wilson was amazed he was even alive.

"You're awake," came the voice of the man Wilson least wanted to talk to. He'd deliberately avoided looking over there in hopes that if he ignored House, House would ignore him.

Wilson could only blame the narcotics in his blood for that particular level of stupidity.

"No thanks to _you_."

"Hey," House said, gesturing with bruised arms down at the cast that went from his right foot up to the top of his thigh, "I couldn't get up to treat you. I did tell them you needed a splenectomy though."

He sounded smug.

"You say that as if you weren't the one who put me here."

"You say that as if I were."

"Oh, don't deny it!" Wilson yelled, feeling his face flush. "This whole thing is your fault. You tried to kill me. You tried to kill both of us. Was this some psycho version of Thelma and Louise?"

House frowned. "You saw Thelma and Louise?"

"I was married. I saw it three times."

"I was single. I only saw the previews."

"Oh for--you know how it ends!" Wilson yelled, and winced as his mid-section pressed too hard against the bandage and sent pain rippling through his ribs.

"Of course I know how it ends. I'm just saying that if we're Thelma and Louise, I'm the sexy one."

Joking. He was joking about this!

"House, maybe you don't feel like you have anything to live for, but the next time you decide to end it all, don't take me along for the ride."

"Cut the crap, Wilson. It was a sled. They don't come with power steering and antilock brakes. It was a random accident. There is no deeper meaning."

Wilson drew a breath to reply, but coughed instead. It felt like he'd been stabbed. He held up a hand, because he wasn't done talking, damn it, he just needed a moment. He coughed again, but there was nothing in his airway to dislodge. He just couldn't take in enough air. Wilson tried to deepen his breaths, but the wrapping prevented it. He struggled to sit up or turn over so he could draw more air into his lungs, but pain stabbed at him with every movement. Wilson flailed at the sheets as he pushed himself up. Pain bit hard, and he cried out, but he still couldn't get enough air.

House was there, suddenly, bracing Wilson's ribs against a pillow and sliding one hand around to Wilson's back, sitting him upright. Wilson reached out blindly, grabbed onto House's shoulders to hold himself up as he tried to slow his shallow, rapid breathing. His earlier anger vanished as House did his best to help him.

Then he realized that House didn't have any crutches.

"Did you just walk over here on your own?" Wilson panted. "If your bones don't set right you'll need surgery, and the circulation in that leg's already compromised. You could lose it."

"I'm not gonna lose my leg. Where the hell is the nurse?"

"Great," Wilson went on. He felt better, and he had no intention of letting House out of this conversation so easily. "So you'll keep the leg and let it kill you. You really do have a death wish."

"No I don't," House said dismissively. He raised the head of the bed behind Wilson and eased him back against it.

"I think you do," Wilson said. "Subconsciously."

House rolled his eyes.

"Don't dismiss this!" Wilson thundered. "I am not going to lose you over your stupid--" Wilson coughed to clear his lungs. "--stubborn," he coughed again.

"Okay, okay," House said. "Stop talking."

"--willful blindness…"

"Shut up and breathe," House said, putting an oxygen mask over Wilson's face.

Wilson shoved it away. "You're miserable with her. It's killing you and you won't even admit it."

"Shut up!" House replaced the mask forcefully.

Wilson was panting rapidly, which made his ribs hurt even more, which made him wince and tense and pant harder. Wilson's left hand closed over House's right, clamping the mask in place.

"Come on, Wilson, breathe."

He tried, but his ribs hurt and he still, no matter what, couldn't fill his lungs. He coughed helplessly. Too tight. His ribs were bound too tightly. Wilson fumbled at his gown with his right hand, desperate to remove the wrap. When his clumsy off-hand fingers couldn't manage the knot he tried ripping at it with his fingernails.

"Why are you…did that idiot bind your ribs?" House asked in disbelief, opening Wilson's gown. "He did." House's face darkened in anger. "Who does that anymore? You're practically hypoxic."

Wilson tried to tell House to shut up and remove the wrap already, but as soon as he started to talk he felt his chest clench and the urge to cough returned.

"Don't talk, okay?" House grabbed something from the tray table beside him.

This time Wilson obeyed. This time he didn’t have a choice. Something flashed in House's hand and was cold against his belly. Fire spread through his ribs but he could breathe now, finally. Taking a full breath hurt but it felt so good that it was worth it.

House's hand held the mask firmly against Wilson's face. Without moving it he turned to Annie, the night nurse hovering in the doorway, and said, "Dr. Beckham not only bound Dr. Wilson's ribs, he did it too tightly. Tell Dr. Cuddy that for the good of his patients he needs to be taken out behind the barn and shot. You can also tell her that Dr. Beckham is no longer Dr. Wilson's attending. _I am_. Any treatment he gets, any drug, any procedure, even a toenail trim--it all goes through me. Understand?"

"I will, Dr. House, but first I have to get you back to bed. You have no business walking on that leg without crutches. Didn't PT bring some up here?" Annie asked, and continued her rapid-fire monologue without waiting for an answer. She got House back to bed, scolded him for getting up, brought Wilson an extra pillow to brace against his injured chest and belly, got Wilson on a nasal cannula in place of the oxygen mask, swiped the surgical scissors from House when she thought he wasn't looking, and threw away the trash from House's dinner all without ever pausing. "The man in bed 704A left a pair of crutches here when he was discharged. I'll bring them in to you before I go home," she said finally, and left.

Wilson pressed the pillow against his chest and concentrated on taking slow, even breaths. In a few minutes he had the hang of timing his breathing to cause the least possible amount of pain. Then he started worrying again.

Had the crash been just a random accident? Wilson didn't think so. He replayed the sled ride in his mind. He felt again the sheer exhilaration of going so fast, flying down the icy hill with the wind in his face and House whooping behind him. They sped straight for the huge, weathered rock until, at the last moment, the sled had turned over, spilled them out and smashed into matchstick fragments against the rock.

Why had the sled flipped onto its side? Wilson had felt something behind him shift and tip the sled just enough to one side to fling its passengers out. What had--how had--

House.

House had flipped the sled. Which meant he could have done so all along. Wilson felt suddenly sick. House had tried to kill himself, and didn’t even know it.

Wilson had a hell of a lot more to say now, and he was going to say it. He'd tried being the good guy, and look where it had gotten them. Wilson was done playing relationship counselor and cheerleader for House's toxic romance.

"You've been through a lot the last few years," he began cautiously.

House glared at him from the other bed. "I thought I told you to shut up."

Wilson continued, unfazed. "You've convinced yourself that Cuddy is your only chance for happiness. I've tried to stay out of this and let you make your own choices, but you're blind to what this is doing to you."

"You pushed me at her for a year."

"Yeah. When I thought she was what you wanted, because I wanted you to be happy. I still do, and that's why I'm saying this to you now. Yesterday you stood there in the cold and slipped around on the ice for an hour while she sledded with Rachel. Your leg was hurting and you were bored out of your mind. You hated it, but you stuck around pretending to enjoy yourself. For what? Sex? It can't be that good."

"Wilson, seriously. Shut up."

"Seriously? No. You tried to kill yourself. I'm not going to shut up. So long as she keeps stringing you along with this on-again, off-again maneuver, she keeps your interest. She enjoys having you as her personally broken bronco, and a free babysitter is always a convenience. But this--this isn't the life you want. This isn't you."

"I love her."

"Nothing that's this hard all the time can possibly be a love worth having."

House looked away. He fidgeted with the bedding. "Even if you're right, which you aren't, the crash wasn’t deliberate."

Wilson sighed. "I'm sure that's true. But I've seen you sled before. I saw you sled today. You know what you're doing. You aimed us right at that thing because you hate your life and you don't want to acknowledge that your relationship with Cuddy is a failure. When your rational mind kicked in at the end, you turned the sled over and saved us. But subconsciously you were looking for an out. You want your freedom, House, and one way or another you'll find it."

House was looking at him, really looking at him, drinking in his words and for a second Wilson thought that he was getting through. Then the porter came in grumbling about Annie and carrying a pair of crutches. House turned away. When the porter left, still complaining, House turned back. Wilson saw that the walls had come up again.

Wilson had been firmly shut out.

Silence filled the room. Wilson's thoughts ran in circles. He knew he was right, and he was terrified of what might happen if House didn’t end things with Cuddy. House had been doing reckless and self- destructive things for as long as Wilson had known him. This time there wasn't even a pretense that House's goal had been to "almost die."

The OD, electrocution, bad blood, the list went on and on. This one was worse, because most of the others had been about House not caring whether he lived. This time House had actively sought death. A familiar sense of helplessness filled Wilson. House didn't think their friendship was worth living for, and Wilson had nothing else to offer.

House mumbled something from across the room that sounded like, "I did."

"You did what?" Wilson asked, although he was dreading the answer.

"I did see Thelma and Louise," House said, with the subdued air of admitting far more than viewing a chick flick.

Wilson's heart turned over. House was acknowledging what he'd done.

House was looking at him sideways, glancing up and away, then back again. This was House at his most vulnerable.

There was a certain nonchalance that Wilson had adopted over the years for times like this, but he couldn't find it now. House had wanted to die--had tried to die, and if this problem wasn't fixed he would try again. Wilson couldn't lose him. The long, empty years ahead would be unendurable without him.

"Don't do this to me. Don't leave me here alone."

House gave a little shrug. "I tried to take you with me. Subconsciously. You aren’t angry about that?"

"I was. I'm over it."

"But you're angry that I might leave you behind."

Now House was just deflecting. Wilson's fear spiked. If House got defensive enough he'd go out and try to kill himself again just to prove he hadn't done it this time. "Don't make this about me. You're the one who tried to kill us."

"You didn't stop me."

"You didn't tell me!"

"I've seen you sled before, too" House said, picking up speed and heat as he spoke. "You know how to turn, how to break, and when to jump off. You didn't do any of that."

"What? What are you talking about? Are you saying it was my fault? Because you were the one with his legs on the outside."

"Which you could have dealt with. You didn't even try. You didn't move other than to lean forward. You were eager."

"I--That's ridiculous." That wasn't possible. Was it?

"You were only angry about me endangering you when you first woke up, but ever since then you've been worried about me. Even in the middle of a respiratory crisis."

"Ease of practice." Wilson's sarcasm brought a brief appreciative light to House's eyes, but it dimmed quickly.

"I don't think so. You said it just now. You don't want me going anywhere without you. I must have realized that, which is why I took you with me."

"Just because my girlfriend left me doesn't mean I'm suicidal."

House ignored this. "For what was probably the first time in your life you told the truth to a woman, and she dumped you for it. Now you've been rejected, not for cheating, or for keeping doctor hours, but for something you honestly felt. So you're alone and depressed. You didn't love Sam, but you thought you did, and she was your best shot at another marriage. You don't even realize that marriage isn't what you want. Not really."

"Yes, really," Wilson said. This was crazy. House was trying to take attention away from his own problems, was all. There was nothing to any of this.

"No," House said. "If you wanted a marriage, you'd still have one."

And just like that, Wilson was in free fall. If he'd really wanted a marriage, he wouldn't have failed at three of them. House was right.

But that didn't mean Wilson wanted to die.

"You have no idea what you want," House went on. "You only know you don't have it. You're as miserable as I am. You might not have started that sled moving, but you stayed on. You wanted what I offered; one last ride with me and then no more pretending to be someone you're not, no more loneliness, no more failure."

"House," Wilson protested. "I didn't--I'm not--"

"Why didn't you stop us? Why did you lean forward?"

Had he really leaned forward? Had he possessed the presence of mind to stop them and chosen not to? Had something in him wanted an end?

Once again he mentally replayed their ride. They were going down the steep slope, flying like birds away from Cuddy and Rachel and every last tedious obligation. Wilson saw again the bald, granite face of the rock ahead, and knew now the moment he had seen it coming and not acted, chosen not to act, had in fact welcomed the speed and bite of the wind and comforting presence of House at his back as they raced together towards their final destination. It had felt like escape. It had felt like freedom.

Wilson turned to House, stunned. "I did… " He couldn't say the rest, but the truth was there in his mind, inescapable.

"It's okay," House told him easily. "You're in good company. We both need to be free."

 

***************

 

Seven weeks later, Wilson tossed House's last suitcase into the Volvo's trunk. House, maneuvering deftly on crutches, checked the cables strapping his bike to the trailer one last time. Then he slid into the passenger seat.

"You checked our contracts for the side by side offices, right?"

"Of course. Bear in mind you'll have to tone down your insanity until we get tenure."

"For me and my best bud to get positions at a better hospital than Princeton? Sure, I can play nice for a few years."

Wilson raised one eloquent eyebrow. "Seriously, House, they're giving us a huge opportunity. We're going to need budgets and staff approved, and friends on the committees."

UPenn had wanted them both pretty badly. Their oncology department was flagging. They wanted a new department head to inject new ideas and re-energize the team there. But it was the thought of a brand new diagnostics department that had really made them drool. They'd agreed to pretty much whatever Wilson wanted in exchange for a guarantee that House would teach a seminar each year and Wilson would kick start their stalled cancer research program.

"Hey, I'm a kinder, gentler lunatic these days. I've even been entrusted with small children."

"Only once, and she swallowed a dime."

"Okay, bad example," House conceded. "Don't worry. I have an ace in the hole. The new Dean there was one of my instructors at my final med school. He already likes me."

"Is he senile?" Wilson asked. "Does he--remember you?"

"How could he possibly forget the student who introduced him to the love of his life?"

"You introduced him to his wife?"

"Nope. Billie Holiday."

"Huh," Wilson said. "A Dean who knows you, hired you anyway, and loves the blues. This might actually work."

"He doesn't micromanage. If the numbers work, he's happy. Anyway, I've already got one person on staff."

"What? How? You haven't even looked at the applications." Wilson knew this to be true, because he'd watched the stack of applications on House's desk at home get progressively covered over in layers of takeout menus, journals, and lollipop wrappers. House had swept the entire mess into a duffle bag and called it packing.

"Guy I knew from another job," House said. "Technically he'll be a resident, not a fellow, but he'll work out."

"You're willingly taking on a resident?"

"His name is Scooter."

"That's awfully familiar. Wait…that's the older man you interviewed a few years ago. He's a doctor now?"

"Yep. He took my advice, entered medical school and placed out of some requirements." At Wilson's disbelieving look, House added, "I may have pulled a few strings to make that happen. Anyway, he's in his fourth year at UPenn looking for a placement, and I just happened to have an opening. It's perfect."

Wilson nodded, impressed. "I haven't even begun looking through my applications. I was saving it till after tomorrow."

"What's tomorrow?"

"Flyers game," Wilson said, reaching into his pocket and flashing the tickets at House.

House took them and glanced at the seats. He whistled in appreciation. "I take back everything I told the Dean about you."

Wilson merged onto the highway. In about an hour they'd be in their new home. Bonnie's friend, their realtor in Philadelphia, had let the movers in yesterday, so Wilson knew there would be boxes and furniture scattered in all the wrong places. But they had time to sort all that out, firm up their departments, and hash out all the details before their start dates.

It was good to be doing this, to be getting away from Princeton and all the accumulated history they had there. Princeton was a comfortable, familiar trap. It was way past time for a new start.

"I'm glad we're doing this," Wilson said slowly. "It feels right."

"Does that mean you're feeling better?"

They didn’t talk about what had happened, but their near deaths had shaken them, Wilson thought. House had ramped up his stalking, and Wilson had driven House up the wall asking if he was okay, and in the meantime they'd both worked hard and fast to break away from Princeton.

"I'm--" fine, Wilson started to say, his default answer to that question. Then he realized that he really was okay. "Yeah, I am."

House didn't reply, just eyed him thoughtfully.

"Do me a favor," Wilson said. "When I get lonely and start dating again and I'm thinking with my dick…if I ask you to sell me your share of the condo to move my girlfriend in, please, say no."

"What makes you think I'm going to let you get lonely?"

Wilson's gaze flew to House. A spark passed between them; something Wilson had thought he'd lost years ago was back, or maybe it had never left.

"We're better together," House said by way of explanation.

"You said it was a mistake." Twenty years had passed, and Wilson could still remember every detail of that conversation.

"I was wrong. Everything else was the mistake. Not you."

"I…need to think about this. If we screw this up, we could lose each other."

"You're not going to lose me."

Wilson swallowed. He hadn't let himself think about this in so long that he didn't even know how he felt about it anymore. "Just give me a few days, okay?"

"Sure." House sounded extremely pleased with himself. He obviously thought he knew what Wilson was going to decide, and he was probably right.

Wilson was suddenly eager to get to their new home.

They rode a few miles in silence. House pulled out three small bottles of ibuprofen and began to juggle. He flipped one at Wilson. It hit his arm.

"Don't hit the driver," Wilson protested, and House immediately threw the second bottle at his face and the third at his crotch. Wilson sighed and raised his eyes to the sky. "I'm willingly moving in with him again. The man who broke my heart, who thought it was funny to make me pee on his couch, who regularly drugs me, and sometimes my neighbors too. I must be out of my mind."

House laughed. "You love me just the way I am."

Wilson glanced over. It had been way too long since he'd seen House's madcap grin. The sight warmed him.

"Yeah," he said fondly. "I do."

End  



End file.
